


Artificial Resonance

by BlameMyMuses



Category: Homestuck, Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Crossover, Gen, homestuck turned mecha
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-18
Updated: 2013-07-18
Packaged: 2017-12-20 15:04:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/888651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlameMyMuses/pseuds/BlameMyMuses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dirk Strider was one of the most promising candidates for the Pan Pacific Defense Corps that anyone had ever seen. He had the drive, the skills, and that self-destruct instinct that everyone knew was looked for in a Jaeger, but which no one talked about. There was just one problem with him.</p><p>Of the hundreds tested, not one single person was drift compatible with him. Not one person could match him, could mesh with him. No one measured up to his excruciating standards.</p><p>So he built one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Artificial Resonance

**Author's Note:**

> So, I saw Pacific Rim last night...and it was FULL of secret homestuck references, I'm sure of it. So this fic happened. (A teaser was posted first on my Tumblr.) ^___^ Enjoy!

Dirk Strider was one of the most promising candidates for the Pan Pacific Defense Corps that anyone had ever seen. He had the drive, the skills, and that self-destruct instinct that everyone knew was looked for in a Jaeger, but which no one talked about. There was just one problem with him.

 

Of the hundreds tested, not one single person was drift compatible with him. Not one person could match him, could mesh with him. No one measured up to his excruciating standards.

 

So he built one.

 

* * *

 

Or rather, he rebuilt one. It was an old program, one he'd played around with as a kid—a prototype artificial intelligence, an auto responder for when he was away from his computer or didn't feel like talking to people. The AR would chat for him.

 

Honestly, Dirk hadn't even thought of it in years. He'd saved it to an old hard drive, and forgotten about it in favor of training to pilot with his Bro.

 

Of course, by the time he was old enough, one of the horrorterrors had already killed his brother, and so Dirk was left incompatible. Alone.

 

Months of testing, and Dirk knew they were going to cut him from the program, despite his simulation scores (nearly a 1:1 takedown ratio, with the numbers edging almost to triple digits now). It was a matter of personality, they said. Suggested he be more “personable”.

 

Dirk didn't exactly _do_ personable.

 

But AR could.

 

He had gone home and dug out that old computer, hooked it into a more modern machine, opened up the dormant program to rewrite the code. It took three nights. By that time, Dirk had been told he just wasn't suited to be a pilot, that maybe he should consider going into the design and development side of the PPDC, given his aptitudes.

 

Instead, Dirk saved the AR.exe files to a portable harddrive and snuck into the Jaeger bay early one morning to hack into the mainframe computers of the suit he'd been helping build. He very carefully began to integrate the Artificial Resonance program into the left hemisphere computers, until there was only one very difficult backdoor file to allow for removal—just in case this didn't work.

 

But it would. Dirk was nothing if not confident about his programming skills.

 

The time read 04:00 as Dirk stepped into the right hemisphere controls. 04:01 as he remote booted the mainframe.

 

04:08 when the first alarms went off, alerting the facility to the fact that someone was not where they were supposed to be.

 

It was 04:12 as the computer intoned “Initializing neural drift,” into the silent hangar bay.

 

And at 04:13 Dirk's mind melted away.

 

* * *

 

It was vivid, cold, pulled and pushing and fractured and whole. Rusty edges and sterile surfaces that contradicted and harmonized until Dirk felt like he had _become_ a computer, and he knew several things all at once.

 

Firstly, that this drift was _working_. The AR was waking up for the first time in years, and was experiencing his mind the same way he was experiencing its mind.

 

Secondly, that the security protocols on the hangar bay doors had just come down, hacked out of the way, access gained. He could see them via the security cameras, AR had already run his own program down and through the supplementary machinery, found where the power source came from, and merged with it. So much for that emergency shutdown protocol.

 

Thirdly was the useless knowledge that androids didn't bother dreaming of electric sheep. Androids didn't bother to sleep.

 

“Right hemisphere stabilized,” said the computer. “Left hemisphere stabilized.”

 

“Huh.” said a voice over the internal speaker system. “So this is what it's like to have a body. Well, half of one.”

 

“Yeah,” said Dirk. “Sorry 'bout the long stasis, AR. But we don't have the time to chat. Got ourselves some convincing to do.”

 

“I know,” the AR responded, because of course he knew. He was in Dirk's head. Dirk was in his hard drive. “Let's show them what we're made of.”


End file.
